The term originated when (iirc) Czechoslovakia was invaded by its fellow countries in the Warsaw Pact (it was also in the Warsaw Pact). Supporters of the invasion and supporters of a one-party Authoritarian State were henceforth called “Tankies”.
Typically people that get called tankies defend the USSR, or China, or any other authoritarian socialist government by saying that shit was either completely made up by the west, or say that “the U.S. does it too and worse”, or anything else to avoid acknowledging the human rights abuses that have happened under the authoritarian socialist regimes.
You can usually find them here in places like lemmygrad or hexbear. It’s a spectrum, some people side with Russia with the Ukraine invasion others think things like the uyghur genocide in Xinjiang is just capitalist propaganda.
Here’s a good example of Second Thought doing it, constantly comparing things to what the U.S. does, which obviously are bad but just because the U.S. does it doesn’t mean that China can get away with it: https://youtu.be/NhPOrkGbpxk
One of the most obvious ones in this video is him comparing plain-clothes police to secret police. He also conveniently forgets both the definition of Authoritarianism:
A form of government in which the governing body has absolute, or almost absolute, control. Typically this control is maintained by force, and little heed is paid to public opinion or the judicial system.
Via Wiktionary
and Nazis. Vaush has a good video debunking this one
Whats a tankie
The term originated when (iirc) Czechoslovakia was invaded by its fellow countries in the Warsaw Pact (it was also in the Warsaw Pact). Supporters of the invasion and supporters of a one-party Authoritarian State were henceforth called “Tankies”.
Typically people that get called tankies defend the USSR, or China, or any other authoritarian socialist government by saying that shit was either completely made up by the west, or say that “the U.S. does it too and worse”, or anything else to avoid acknowledging the human rights abuses that have happened under the authoritarian socialist regimes.
You can usually find them here in places like lemmygrad or hexbear. It’s a spectrum, some people side with Russia with the Ukraine invasion others think things like the uyghur genocide in Xinjiang is just capitalist propaganda.
Here’s a good example of Second Thought doing it, constantly comparing things to what the U.S. does, which obviously are bad but just because the U.S. does it doesn’t mean that China can get away with it: https://youtu.be/NhPOrkGbpxk
One of the most obvious ones in this video is him comparing plain-clothes police to secret police. He also conveniently forgets both the definition of Authoritarianism:
and Nazis. Vaush has a good video debunking this one